Page 70 of Offside

“He showed me how to run the boards separately.” Ryan was already at the bench, picking up the thermos. “Hot chocolate? It’s cold in here. I mean, compared to outside.” He laughed.

I walked in slowly, taking it in. He’d thought about all of it. The light, the music, the hot chocolate, the skates waiting on the bench. He’d come here on a Friday at some point and figured out how to make my workplace into something else entirely.

I turned to look at him. He was pouring hot chocolate with the same careful focus, and he glanced up and caught my expression and said, simply, “You’ve never skated. I wanted to fix that.”

I took the cup he held out.

“Thank you,” I said, which was not close to adequate but was all I had.

“Don’t thank me yet.” He nodded at the skates on the bench beside me. “You haven’t tried them on yet.”

I picked up the smaller pair and turned them over. Black skates, my size. I checked the tag and raised my eyes to him. “Are these for me?”

“Of course they are,” he replied, taking the other one out of the box, and knelt down in front of me, where he began removing my shoes.

“These are hockey skates,” I said. He had known my size. “Why hockey skates?”

“Hockey skates are for badasses.” He crouched in front of me, completely matter-of-fact. “You’re the most badass woman I know.”

I stared at him. He picked up my foot and started working the skate on like he hadn’t just said that.

“Ryan.”

“You’re also on my ice.” He didn’t look up. “You wear what I wear.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Looked at the top of his head while he laced me up with the same care he gave all things that mattered and decided I had absolutely nothing to say. Instead, I watched him as he carefully tied my new skates on, completely into the task at hand.

He laced both skates methodically, starting from the toe and working up, pulling each section snug before moving to the next. I watched him focus while a zing I didn’t immediately have a name for ran through me.

He had bought me skates. He had known my shoe size. I hadn’t told him, I was going to need to think about how he’d known, and he’d brought them here and was now on one knee on a concrete floor lacing them onto my feet like it was the obvious thing to do. Like of course this was what you did when someone you were seeing couldn’t skate and you had access to a private rink.

I didn’t realize caring for someone could look like this. Small and exact and already done before anyone had to ask anything.

Josh had never once asked about my patients. I’d mentioned that to Ryan three weeks ago, not as a complaint, a fact about my day, and he’d filed it away without comment. I was starting to understand that was how he operated. He filed things away and then acted on them quietly, without announcement, and you only noticed in retrospect.

“Too tight?” he asked, without looking up.

“No.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “They’re good.”

He finished the second one, checked the tension once more, then stood and stepped back. He’d put his own skates on while I was looking at mine. I hadn’t even noticed. He moved out onto the ice like it was an extension of himself, effortless, and held out his hand.

“Come on,” he said.

“I’m going to fall.”

“You’re not going to fall.”

“Ryan. I’m going to fall.”

“Then I’ll catch you.” His hand was still out, patient. “Come on. I should have taught you to skate nine years ago.”

I let the comment go, realizing whatever this was, this moment, he’d thought about it more than recently. More than I’d expected. I decided to let the emotion that came with his words, and with this moment, settle into my heart a little deeper. I took his hand and stepped onto the ice and immediately my feet slid in two different directions. His arm came around my waist, steady and sure, pulling me upright against his side.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

I gripped his arm with both hands and did not let go. “This is humiliating.”

“You’re doing fine.”